My Cadillac Test Drive Was Better Than Yours, I Promise

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I mentioned on Tuesday that you could earn 7,500 free AAdvantage miles for test driving a Cadillac during a special cross-promotion. I also mentioned drinking wine.

What I didn’t realize is that wine, miles, and cars would intersect quite the way they did. I can now state with certainty that MY Cadillac test drive was better than your test drive. That’s not debatable.

I showed up to Frank Kent Cadillac last night for my 6 pm appointment and all of the salesmen were already with customers. I didn’t want to take them away from that business since I’m realistically a couple of years away from a new car so I chatted with the receptionist for a few minutes before heading back to meet with Roger, the General Sales Manager.

We talked for a few minutes about why I was there and he got me all set up for the promo. We also had the opportunity to chat about Kent & Co Wines (which I also mentioned on Tuesday) – I did not realize a classmate’s brother was running that operation, but that was a very cool discovery.

I was slightly disappointed that they were too busy for me to ride in one of the cars (I like cars!) but I come from a sales family so I’m the first to acknowledge that business comes first… and yet the experience was so friendly and smooth that I totally understand why this dealerships is regularly one of GM’s Dealer of the Year award winners.

So I was all set up for my miles and Roger was ready to send me on my way. As we were walking out of his office, we bumped into one of his colleagues and in the friendly way we native Fort Worth types have, he asked me “Jennifer, do you know Brad Kimura?”

And that’s where the collision happened. You see, I DO know Brad – but not from *this* lifetime – total cognitive dissonance.. I met him when I was a gawky 14 year old girl and he was the YMCA director who ran our local Youth & Government program. Now 26 years later, I sit on the state board for YMCA Youth & Government (and co-lead it’s Model United Nations program) and here in front of me was the man who helped pave the way for so much of my teen activities that would later lead to my college major, my career direction, and now a big part of my volunteer life.

And Brad is in a different life too – after retiring from a career in leadership with the YMCA, he now runs Cadillac Wines, an innovative in-dealership wine store that has been recognized for its innovation by Edmunds.com and ranks among one of the top US sellers of several cult wines.

We visited for a while in his shop, tucked in a corner of the dealership and caught up on life since we’d last seen each other almost a quarter century ago.

I sampled a lovely red out of a beautiful Cadillac Wines Riedel glass (don’t worry about the mix of cars and wine – they limit all in-shop sampling to 5 oz during a visit) and learned about their innovative tasting program which includes monthly events at the dealership, where cars are moved from the showroom floor to make room for tables for food/wine pairing and education.

This small shop is small only in terms of square footage because the climate controlled inventory includes many WOW wines across all price points (and like sister Kent & Co, at prices that made my jaw drop from surprise).

Only about 30% of the shop’s customers are also Cadillac owners – like Kent & Co, they have a following all of their own. If you are a local, it is worth a stop in to visit when you need a bottle (or 6).

So yes, MY test drive was better than yours was. But if you want to try to replicate some of it, I encourage you to visit Frank Kent (as well as Cadillac Wine) for your own test drive.

Jennifer is a management consultant and avid volunteer. Her career and volunteer duty travels have helped her log top-tier airline and hotel status annually for the last eighteen years. In addition, she embraces the opportunity to maximize her vacation time by planning extracurricular trips that have taken her to over 60 countries and 48.5 US states. Although she averages 200 days a year on the road, she loves to return to “the homestead” in her native Fort Worth, Texas where she enjoys cooking, gardening, sewing, needlepoint, wine, and cocktail mixology.